There are a lot of snake oil salesmen around when it comes to finding a medical break through from the stem cells of young human beings. Internationally I have seen bogus outfits promising the miracle cures of stem cells, when all they are doing is acquiring stem cells from deceased fetuses, etc and injecting them into patience on a wing and a prayer.

A family desperate to save a child from a lethal brain disease sought highly experimental injections of fetalstem cellsâ€”injections that triggered tumors in the boy’s brain and spinal cord, Israeli scientists reported Tuesday.Scientists are furiously trying to harness different types of stem cellsâ€”the building blocks for other cells in the bodyâ€”to regrow damaged tissues and thus treat devastating diseases. But for all the promise, researchers have long warned that they must learn to control newly injected stem cells so they don’t grow where they shouldn’t, and small studies in people are only just beginning.

Actually, this reporting is full of lies as well. Embryonic Stem Cell proponents have promised to make the crippled walk within a few years (Senator and VP candidate John Edwards to name one). They have not accurately explained the challenges and there has been little reporting about their failures.

The fact is there are numerous human studies ongoing, which have produced break throughs in dealing with many critical illnesses. These all come from using adult stem cells, not the stem cells of the unborn (newly deceased). Folks can search some of the latest advances and successes from adult stem cells from my numerous posts on the topic. For those disinclined to do some searching, you can find a few examples here, here and here.

But back to the ugly truth about stem cells from the unborn and the snake oil salesmen who peddle them:

“Patients, please beware,” said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn’t involved in the Israeli boy’s care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.

“Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways, it just is going to take a good deal of time” to prove how best to pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.

…

Israeli doctors pieced together the child’s history: When he was 9, the family traveled to Russia, to a Moscow clinic that provided injections of neural stem cells from fetusesâ€”immature cells destined to grow into a main type of brain cells. The cells were injected into his brain and spinal cord twice more, at ages 10 and 12.

…

Using stem cells from multiple fetuses that also were mixed with growth-spurring compounds “may have created a high-risk situation where abnormal growth of more than one cell occurred,” wrote lead researcher Dr. Ninette Amariglio of Sheba Medical. She urged better research to “maximize the potential benefits of regenerative medicine while minimizing the risks.”

I have a better proposal: focus our efforts on expanding the successes of adult stem cell therapies. People who look to the unborn for miracle cures are actually hoping to patent some powerful genetic code, because many states do not extend the ban on patenting human beings to the unborn. That is the legal loop hole these people are so attracted to – pure, endless profits.

The ones who really want to cure disease instead of getting rich are the ones working in the adult stem cell field. They do it for the cause, for the benefit to human kind, because they know legally they cannot achieve massive personal wealth going in.

If you want to maximize personal wealth, you are probably working with dead, unborn human beings.